I have previously mentioned that I do own a business, apart from being employed full-time. It’s a small venture in the e-commerce market that I’ve started about 7 months ago. It operates with one employee — myself, so you may also call it “self-employment”. Why do I refer to it as “business” then?
Self-employment is usually associated with skilled professionals doing the job themselves, such as dentists, construction workers, fitness trainers, and so on. The reason I think of my company as a separate “business”, is because it has the capacity to be scaled and grown over time (which is also my goal). As anything that operates online, the sky is, honestly, the limit.
Why don’t I scale it then?
Well, I am working on it 🙂 As I have also mentioned before, 2020 has not been the easiest year for me and my partner, which we were also grossly underprepared for. I have started the business with about €3000 initial investment, and, while working from home, I do have the time, energy, and capacity to pull everything myself at this point. It saves me money, and teaches me operating aspects, that I would have missed otherwise. The long term strategy is to outsource the fulfilment and distribution to a third-party company, which would free up more time for me to focus on products and customer experience.
How big is it?
To this date, I have sent out about 600 orders and surpassed €20.000 in sales. Looking at these numbers, I am definitely happy and proud of my accomplishments, but this is not nearly where I need them to be. My long term goal is to wake up in the morning, and be able to work for myself. I expect that with about €30.000 in sales per month, I will be comfortable enough to quit my full-time job and focus on business. Sounds crazy? Keep in mind that e-commerce can fluctuate a lot with seasons, as well as, sales amount does not equal profit. I also want a large chunk of this amount to go into business development. Considering all of that, €30.000 would barely touch the surface of my goals.
What are the practical plans for near future?
At this moment I have two major bottlenecks: I do not have enough storage in my house for all the goods, and I need to send out all of the orders myself. Given the size of the business at this moment, I am still managing with room to spare. I do expect that with positive growth that will change.
Getting an extra storage room is easy, but finding a right and reliable fulfilment partner, that does not take away a lot of the margin, is a different issue I will have to tackle. Don’t misinterpret this for complaining, I am happy with what I do and I think that growth is only possible together with new problems. I like those problems, and they will only become bigger with time. With correct operations on my end, I expect that I will need to start looking into third-party fulfilment already in 3-4 months. More updates will be coming.
How does all of this fit in with this blog?
I have started this blog to document my thoughts and be able to revert back in time in the future. Already at 4 posts that I did now, I feel that I am much better off outlining my thoughts not only to myself, but to the world. Keeps me focused on the content that I write. Along with other topics I write about, I hope that I can provide regular updates on the status of business. Let me know in the comments what is the most interesting aspect you’d like to learn more about.